Volks,

    I drove the van today, starting it up this afternoon after it had sat
for 36 hrs.  Started up fine but the idle seemed high and when I went to put
it into gear (R) it jumped in real quick and gave a little jump.  Drive (D)
did a similar thing.  Drove out the driveway and sure enough it wouldn't
shift into 2nd.  Baked off the gas and she went into 2nd, then third was the
problem, so I pulled off the road, slipped it into neutral, back into drive
and then I was off with smooth shifting all the way. This all took maybe 2-3
minutes.
    I checked the timing tonight (van warmed up, temp II sensor dsconnected,
quarter in the throttle stop, nailed at 2000 rpm.  Timing was indeed off a
bit (too advanced).  This must have gotten knocked from when I was rotating
the crankshaft last week to check on the valve adjustment (finally moved
them up to 1 3/4 turns after having them at 0 lash).   I didn't adjust the
RPM's yet, but after timing the beast it did look close to 1000, so I plan
on backing the RPM's down a bit with the idle screw tomorrow.
    Seems weird, but do you think it could be as simple as a timing/RPM
issue?  I plan on getting the AT filter checked/cleaned and fluid changed
(maybe myself though I've never done it before), and seeing what goes on
there.

Dan Erlandson
91 GL with @ 177,000 miles
A/C and AT